Month: June 2010

The Crown Princess of Sweden got married over the weekend and I have to say that, as much as I admire the elegant restraint of her wedding dress, my favourite royal wedding attire of all time remains Grace Kelly’s stunning dress:

Wedding dress shopping was the most enjoyable experience of my entire wedding-planning adventure over the past year. I wish it had lasted longer but, don’t you know it, I fell in love with a sample dress I tried on at the second store I checked out. It was not, even remotely, like the dress I thought I would end up buying, but it made me feel ‘like a princess’, which is kind of the whole point of wedding dresses, isn’t it? Even though the closest I’ll ever get to royalty is Hello magazine. Even if my feeling like one apparently requires beading and lace and tulle. I know, that sounds so “The 80s Called and Asked for their Over-The-Top Excess Back” but it’s classier than that, I swear. And definitely classier than, say, a Pnina Tornai “see-through special” (for all the Say Yes To The Dress fans out there).

Going in for my wedding dress alterations, on the other hand, was anxiety-inducing more than anything else. At the grand old age of almost-30, I no longer obsess about my body the way I did at, say, 20, but I had a definite flashback to that bygone era while standing in front of a giant mirror waiting to be measured, pinned and inspected. Was this suddenly going to turn into an episode of Bulging Brides? Did I detect the beginnings of the dreaded “bat-wing” effect? Was I flashing my ‘posse’ some unappetizing shoulder/back cleavage? In a matter of minutes, I felt myself slipping into a spiral of bridal madness. I’d held out so long – why, oh, why now?

Fortunately for all involved in my nuptials, I recovered relatively quickly. The ice-cream helped. Having teetered on the brink of Bridezilla-dom, I regained my foothold on reality. For now. With a little less than two weeks to go until the ‘big day’, I’m not making any promises.

For this inaugural post, I decided to feature a dear friend of mine, who is both incredibly stylish and kind enough to agree to be my “street style” pioneer. For the sake of full disclosure, I must mention that she doesn’t live in Edmonton, which is a little bit of a cheat on my part … but I could not resist this photo. Gorgeous!